Every Family Has a Story: How We Inherit Love and Loss

Psychotherapist Samuel (This Too Shall Pass) follows eight families through multiple generations to examine how unresolved pain and the toxic scripts frequently used as a coping mechanism affect each member. Owing to the COVID pandemic, the author started conducting family therapy sessions via Zoom, which enabled her to see more members at the same time. In the process, she discovered virtual counseling was less intimidating for some in the older generations and that allowed for more transparency. Each chapter includes a summary of issues addressed and what brought each family to therapy. A variety of families and struggles are explored. For example, there’s the homosexual couple attending therapy as they work their way through the process of becoming parents through adoption; the recent immigrants from Antigua who lost a child to cancer; and an Orthodox Jewish family whose matriarch is a Holocaust survivor. Readers gain a list of 12 touchstones for wellbeing that encourages personal growth and the need for policies that support family.